Paphitis wrote:bigOz wrote:OK a simple emergency question for all the would be pilots and pilots! I want to see who will come up with the answer first!
Although he completes the external checks and everything is fine, A student pilot is so excited that he takes off without carrying out his pre-flight checks. He is about to do some circuits that would involve touch and go's. As he turns downwind round a left circuit, he is having to fight the controls to keep the aircraft in straight flight. Aircraft keeps wanting to roll left. As he turns for the final approach, the aircraft's controls start getting stiffer and stiffer and he is physically having to exert excessive force on the controls to stop the aircraft from rolling left, and possibly stalling.
He just about manages to land the single angine aircraft safely using some the learned skills, only to find out what was the problem soon after.
a) what actions he took to land the aircraft safely and without stalling?
b) what could have caused the aircraft to behave in such a potentially fatal manner?
He/she did not remove the Pitot Tube cover and didn't have any airspeed indication. His Rudder Trim was possibly not set in the neutral position and his airspeed was low enough to make the aircraft want to stall and enter an incipient spin.
Recovery is power up and nose down to increase airspeed and airflow over the left wing and apply right rudder.
He she probably didn't dip the tanks and so the aircraft may have been left wing heavy. This is just a minor factor!
Thanks for trying Paphitis! Also thank you for your other detailed replies.
Your answer to the above incident for part (a) is correct! The action would provide what we would call a 'skid' and allow the aircraft touch down safely - albeit with full rudder, a lot of forward pressure on control column and increased power to maintain the correct glide path.
The answer to part (b) for this actual incident at an Airfield in UK (by a close associate many moons ago) was in fact due to incomplete pre flight checks!
The person in question did not bother with checking the state of the auto pilot. It should always be OFF during take off and in a circuit. On this occasion it was left ON by ground crew who checked the power to the navigational instruments. Autopilot was tuned to a nearby VOR and it kept trying to roll towards its direction. Beacause of the terrain take off and crosswind legs were unaffected.